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Net managers struggle to diagnose application problems, survey finds

Network Instruments polled attendees of Interop New York to learn what challenges them most
By Denise Dubie , Network World , 09/18/2008
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NEW YORK -- Network managers responsible for troubleshooting performance problems say they find it difficult to separate network issues from application issues, recent poll results reveal.

Half of 105 network engineers and IT executives surveyed on-site at the Interop New York 2008 conference this week said the biggest challenge they experienced when troubleshooting application performance and availability was being able to discern network-related problems from application-centric issues. Another 27% said identifying application-specific transaction issues challenged them most.

"This can often be the most time-consuming portion of troubleshooting. If they can determine which one has the problem, they can apply specific knowledge and toolsets to that area," said Charles Thompson, manager of systems engineering at Network Instruments.The network and application performance management vendor conducted the survey while exhibiting at the show. (Compare application performance management products

More than one-quarter of those polled indicated a lack of information about problems and their causes challenged them most, and 26% found managing application performance and availability most challenging. Some 46% worried most about quality of service, and 54% anticipate being more challenged when managing virtualization on their nets. Others expect unified communications (27%) and cloud computing (20%) to make their jobs more difficult in the future.

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Comments (3)
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And the survey was done when?By tuomoks on September 18, 2008, 9:55 pmYes, seems to be a problem today and I feel for people working on networks, but I wonder why this happens? And of course the network is too often blamed, it is after...

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Not one bit surprisingBy Steve Henning on October 1, 2008, 8:41 pmWell... of course it is difficult to tell the source of a performance problem given the way troubleshooting is currently done! Every IT department I speak with is...

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Have you looked at OPNET'sBy Anon on March 12, 2009, 10:07 pmHave you looked at OPNET's Application Performance Management suite? It does exactly what you are askin for

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